Etsy

What did I do tonight after getting home from a long day at work? I worked for another three hours on an etsy site. Looking at the finished product, I think it was worth it.

Teaser:

Wooden Mushroom

Message in a bottle Earrings

Tesseract Poster

Tiny Feather Earrings

If you felt kind enough to humor me, I'd really love it if you dropped by and told me what you thought. Disclaimer: I didn't make everything on it, but I did take all the pictures and make over half of it. So that counts for something, right?

Please?

The Lion-fighter

One of my friends showed me this article and I thought it was worth sharing - nay, a crime not to share!

Photo taken from article page.

Here's the premise, as in the article:

Given the current state of the economy, it comes as no surprise that many Egyptians are doing all that they can to revive international interest in their country. What is surprising, though, is that one man has somehow managed to convince himself - and a few others - that he can single-handedly “boost tourism in Egypt” by fighting a full-grown African lion in direct hand-to-paw combat, in front of the Pyramids at Giza.

Did you...? Yes. You read correctly. The article goes on to provide a thorough explanation of the lion-fighter's technique and philosophy. Here are some highlights:

Premise:

I discovered my incredible strength at the age of 13, and, almost immediately afterwards, promised myself that, one of these days, I would fight a lion.

 Animal right concerns:

God made me, and he made the lion, and he put us both on the same planet, which means the lion is fair game. Ethically, there should be no problem.

Technique:

It consists of a series of combination moves. I will start off with the slaps, but, you should know, my slaps are unlike any other.

I'd love to hear your thoughts. Will it revive the tourism industry? Is it different from bullfighting in Spain? Or cockfighting?

Read it here.

Photogenetics

Is this, or is this not, the most photogenic family you have ever encountered? Just sayin'.

These celebs were kind enough to let me take these myself.

Pathologies of Power: Book Review Part I

First things first: kudos to my Americorps supervisors who accepted Pathologies of Power as an approved "civic engagement" book. It gave me a fantastic reason to once again start over and finally finish this intellectually dense but rewarding book.


Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer (subject of the much-loved Mountains Beyond Mountains) describes in great, scholarly and personal detail, structural violence, liberation theology, and affecting positive change against all odds. He, besides making plain the current state of our world due to many things (but very noticeably politics and pharmaceuticals), also makes the take-home message cuttingly personal in saying that the same world that makes the poor poor is the world in which likely you, and also I, are living quite comfortably. It is unlikely, I would say, that the plight of all poor is solely our fault, but we are enabling behaviors such as corporate exploitation of poorer populations by supporting organizations and businesses with little or no social responsibility.

Another point that Farmer hit on was slightly harder for me in which to envision my role: that if health care was a basic human right (as in the UN's Declaration on Human Rights), there ought to be a preferential treatment option for the poor. My gut reaction to this statement is agreement, but many questions quickly follow. What of the cost of medical care (to which Farmer would point, at least in part, to arbitrary pharmaceutical pricing)? Who will bear it? How do we convince physicians, and, harder, hospital and office administrators, that this is the case? Should this be a private- or public-sector endeavor?

One thing is obvious: Farmer asserts that it should be an endeavor. From Mountains Beyond Mountains and implied in Pathologies of Power, we learn that Farmer consistently skips dwelling on the impossibility of treatment for such supposedly "cost-ineffective" treatment for the poor and instead moves directly into making the ideal a reality. This is certainly and encouragement, inspiration, and model to be followed in Public Health work. Too often we get caught up in the barriers, lose energy, and give up before even giving an honest attempt at solving difficult problems such as providing an adequate supply of appropriate MDR-TB drugs or providing anti-retroviral drugs to those who so desperately need them.

While I been deeply touched by the kindness and generosity of the providers in CHC's network, I have
also been saddened by where we couldn't help people. I am left wondering how to produce the kind of premium healthcare mandated by Human Rights and Farmer if such a fantastic organization and so many generous volunteer doctors and dentists falls short of what Farmer would call a "preferential treatment option" for the poor. How, aside from (as Farmer has had) wealthy investors in the cause, can we produce such a system? Farmer argues that this would be a governmental responsibility.

I have been surprised in the past several years that there has not been an increase but a decrease in funding for both public health efforts and social services. Medicaid dental coverage was cut years ago for non-pregnant adults and in at least the case of one of my patients (who asked me to reference his case should I ever get a chance to plead the cause), has resulted in astronomically rising costs from medical conditions worsened or directly caused by dental problems. The human body cannot be sectioned off into areas unrelated to each other in health, just as society cannot be sectioned off into areas unrelated to each other in community.

I have had occasion over the past few months to discuss many different government and economic systems in the world, and one concern that I have with the extremest forms of small government now currently proposed in the political landscape is the people who even now hang by a thread to urgently needed and increasingly underfunded and insufficient social services. Maybe you agree that government shouldn't perform social services, and that things like medical services for the low-income, uninsured population should be taken over by the private- or third-sector. My question is what happens to the people while society "adjusts" to this new order? The answer I receive usually involves a concession that a period of adjustment would likely produce a number of casualties. Numbers are people. At times before, and definitely since my ten months with Community Health Connect, these people have names and faces. Stories that would make even the most fiscally conservative scramble to make official provisions for them. What of these people?

Farmer also speaks of the fact that scientific research continues to make significant contributions to solving many health problems, and yet these gains so often fail to reach the population that so desperately needs them. While Farmer presents many case studies and success stories, I still have quite a bit of reflecting and working to do in order to determine my role in attempting "pragmatic solidarity" with the poor. Nearing the end of my term, I do feel grateful for the opportunity that Americorps has offered me to better empathize with people in need in my own community. Having experienced a 100% federal and 50% state reduction in funding for my Americorps program (Americorps and the Medically Underserved of Utah), I feel a growing concern for the people that we work with through our different placements.

I don't know that I have an answer yet, but I agree with Farmer that it is my responsibility to keep looking.

Saturday Mornings

Saturday mornings have recently become less restful and more productive. As I mentioned in my last post, the owner of Rowley Press and I have been selling together under the name The Foundry. He is selling paper wares of the letterpress and giclee persuasion (to this point exclusive to the Farmer's Market) and I have been selling earrings made of antique buttons, wood,and feathers (among other things). I have also been dabbling in the arts of solid perfume and reusable dryer bags... with mixed success.

We were making the dryer bags on my beautiful antique anker sewing machine out of vintage cotton fabric, but after some R&D conducted while actually usig such bags, we found that the reusability was, in fact, debatable. Namely, on the bag tested, there was approximately 5% of the filling left after one use. Sorry, people we sold to! Twas an honest mistake. It looks as though the problem is that the weave of the fabrics wasn't quite tight enough, but any insight on the matter would be welcome. For the time being, we have lots of deliciously scented deodorizer bags.

The solid perfumes are another interesting side project. I'll just say that so far I have a near perfect ability to predict who will and will not like my scents. You could probably do it with little training. Ask yourself if the person sniffing them appears to be a hippie. If yes, odds are in our favor. If no, they might like the floral scent but will likely be perplexed as to why anyone would ever want to smell like any of them. Ah, well. It's a work in progress. Come find us sometime! We are there most weeks.

Hello again.

Lots of time has passed. Quite a bit of it in fact. And many things have changed. For one, I started a new blog. Which I also subsequently neglected. I think part of that was not being able to reconcile myself with certain cheesiness involved, and also doing less of sitting inside on a computer in my free time.

This was correlated with me having less free time. I went back to Provo for a job interview that seemed promising, and I was told was promising, and ended up not being very promising. Having moved from Provo to Seattle to DC and then back to Provo, I gave up the moving for a little while. Got a job back at the pediatrics office I used to work at. Got a job at Sunflower. Got an Americorps position with a local nonprofit, which I love. You can read more about Community Health Connect here. It is a lot of work, but well worth it. I am the care coordinator in charge of the entire dental program. I spend about 80% of my day speaking in Spanish. Well, probably about 50-80%, depending on the day.

My term ends at the end of September. I am currently gathering my thoughts about my next step. It will probably involve entering doulahood and/or doing prerequisites for a graduate degree in midwifery.


I started selling at the Farmer's Market with the owner of Rowley Press. We started making money two weeks ago. We'd probably do it even if we didn't make money. Foundrygoods is our Etsy shop, but we are really, really bad at adding new items. It just takes a long time.

My goals for this month:

• start posting on my photo blog again
• be gutsy enough to send this blog public again
• send two packages to people I love

Keep me honest.

Why humans should not have cell phones

... nearby when they are in an impaired state of consciousness.

photo

Apparently as I was drifting off to sleep last night I thought it would be a genius idea to text my friend one word:

haberdashery.

I believe it was meant in this (def #2) context, but it also means this. Hard to tell with my subconscious.

Sorry, friend. You know who you are.

In which I come out even.

Today was one of those days when you hit the pillow and think, at least it's over. I spent all day long applying to jobs which for some reason felt especially fruitless. The lawyer's assistant called about my lawsuit. From the car accident. Yes, the lawsuit that is still going on and will end up having lasted longer than G & I's entire relationship. Don't worry, she was just asking me to do something I did a month ago. For goodness sake, this is ridiculous. The whole lawsuit has been a joke, with the lawyer's office sitting around losing stuff for the most part. In addition to all of that, I applied to PATH again today. I would really, really like to work for them. I have been applying to jobs there for years. Literally. Not straight, but still. I got a rejection letter within the first 10 minutes of applying! Perhaps half hour. And yet.

I do not know what they want from me.

I was perfectly qualified for the position and I wrote a beautiful cover letter. Better yet, the position is still posted on idealist. I have half a mind to apply again. Ridiculous.

As I was sitting here in this very chair feeling quite miserable, I looked out the window and saw something that made it all ok:

A METEOR SHOWER!!! Just kidding. My favorite weather - sunny and raining. Such a beautiful paradox.

Then I went for a run. It was the type of humid I tell people to dread in the summers here - where you feel like you're walking through soup. I ran by visible wisps of vapor roughly my height. It hovered in the meadows. Things are all right. I know that when I'm settled and have a job, this period of time will seem so short and unimportant. But I don't have that distance yet. All I have is simple pleasures and wonderful friends.

In which I talk about my lunch.

My family is notorious for discussing food to an extent that most others find ridiculous. Our family newsletter is as much a food log as a diary. This includes detailed descriptions of any important meals, along with pictures. Let me see if I can locate one (I'm on my parents' computer)...

There we go. Not sure what this is or what the occasion was, but judging by the pointsetta I'd say Christmas or new year's. I had no idea this was abnormal until I went to college - about the same time that I realized the retort "what, do you have a piano tied to your arm?" and the exclamation "it's colder than a well digger's boot in here" were also unique.

Anywho, I was making myself a delicious arugula salad for lunch today and I found myself wondering exactly what sort of nutrient value the ingredients have. So, afterwards, I looked it up - we love the internet. I was surprised by some of the results (from Nutrition Data, a handy li'l website). There may or may not be commentary inserted.

Arugula: a good source of Protein, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Pantothenic Acid, Zinc and Copper (mm, can't get enough copper these days...), and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Folate, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium and Manganese.

Avocado: a good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin C, Vitamin K and Folate. (Also a good source of deliciousness.)

Raw Broccoli: a good source of Protein (! protein? really? broccoli is a good source of protein. ok), Vitamin E, Thiamin, Riboflavin, Pantothenic Acid, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Selenium, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Vitamin B6, Folate, Potassium and Manganese.

Pumpkin Seeds: a good source of Protein, Vitamin K, Iron and Copper, and a very good source of Magnesium, Phosphorus and Manganese. (also the number one aphrodisiac for males, apparently. I hear it's chocolate for women).

Roasted Almonds: a good source of Magnesium, and a very good source of Vitamin E (Alpha Tocopherol) and Manganese.

Goat Cheese: a good source of Protein and Copper. (Copper! Really? If so, I am all set for my copper intake, thank you.)

Olive Oil: well, well, well... what've we got here? some omega-3's, some Vitamin E and K? Alright.

Balsamic Vinegar: Trace amounts of lots of stuff, sugar (YES), and ... I'm sorry... ash? What?


A few things concluded:

• Yes. I am a nerd.
• I'm a bit iffy on our source here. But that's ok. My curiosity is satisfied.

p.s. - try the salad, it's delicious.

It's all about the scrolling text.

Choose your own no-nonsense cover letter!

Dear Potential Employer:

I am writing to express my interest in the (blanky blank) position advertised (somewhere). In my research, I have been extremely/sort of/not really impressed with your organization because of (reasons). Due to my education and work experience, I am very/moderately/not at all qualified for this position.

I have years/months/not a day of related work experience wherein I learned (things) and developed (skills).

I feel I would be an excellent addition to your organization. My salary requirements are more than you would pay/about what you would pay/anything that will allow me to eat and life under a roof. Please do not hesitate to contact me with any questions regarding my application.

Seriously,
Awesome McHireme
BS in Employability
Loc.al P.hone

In which my hair rediscovers humidity.

Thank you.

I have thought about doing this post for a long, long while. It is overdue. While, quite obviously, there have been people very close to me who have hurt me deeply, this is the exception, and not the rule.

Thank you for the concern. For the time spent on the telephone, at restaurants, in your homes, cars, and online. Forgive any slowness to respond on my part, or any fumbling for words. I appreciate and am deeply touched by your efforts to assuage my pain.

Thank you for your efforts in helping me find a job. I hope, as do you, that our efforts together will allow me to start establishing myself again. Thank you for tirelessly reviewing my resumes, cover letters, and applications. Thank you for exhausting your contacts for my benefit. It is a slow process, but better with people like you.

You are awesome. In the literal sense. When I ponder about how forgiving you are of my many mistakes, how encouraging you are of someone with no home, no job, and no real prospects, how kind you are to someone so broken (exhaustingly so at times, I'd imagine), I am in awe.

I do not understand what I have done to deserve you. I'm not sure how I feel about the concept of deserving, at this point. But I am grateful for you. And, lest there have ever been any confusion, I love you all (in appropriate ways) very, very deeply. You have touched my life and my guarded self very deeply. I cannot do justice to the feelings I have on the topic, so I will leave it here:

Thank you.